Paradise has been home to generations of Trevannions: Paradise, the house at the head of a sheltered Cornish valley where Mrs Trevannion lives, surrounded by her family. Frail and elderly, Honor Trevannion, bedridden following a nasty fall, is inexplicably anxious and distressed by the arrival of a young American bearing an old black-and-white photograph of a double wedding and looking for a long-lost relative.